


O Lazarus, How Did Your Debts Get Paid?

by thegrumblingirl



Series: Why Don't You Save Me? (1 Million Celebration) [1]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Angst and Humor, Canon-Typical Violence, Daud POV, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Last Chance to Say, List of Petty Grievances, Love Confessions, M/M, Matter of Life and Death, Mutual Pining, Outnumbered and Outgunned, post Brigmore Witches, pre Dishonored 2, the Void is empty and the Envisioned are here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2020-11-01 23:55:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20551523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegrumblingirl/pseuds/thegrumblingirl
Summary: It wouldn’t take much longer now. They had slowed the beast, but their exit had collapsed in a rift ten minutes ago, opened by the creature, larger and meaner than any they’d seen and fought before. It had driven them deeper into the building, which had practically been hollowed out by destruction and dilapidation, two stories and the roof above the great hall and library collapsed, like the giant, dripping ribcage of a carcass.





	O Lazarus, How Did Your Debts Get Paid?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spider_fingers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spider_fingers/gifts).

> To celebrate posting 1 MILLION words on this here AO3, I am [giving away ten request slots](https://screwtheprinceimtakingthehorse.tumblr.com/post/187537485520/to-mark-knocking-out-a-million-words-on-ao3-im). This is the first of the lot, for spider_fingers!
> 
> Title taken from [The Brothers Bright: Blood On My Name](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPSUtaW_oBo).

“Shit,” Daud swore as he checked his ammunition pouch and found it empty of explosive shells, and only a handful of bullets remaining. “I’m almost out.” He let himself sink down next to Corvo, covered by the debris littering the ground, wood and stone from the fallen roof.

“I don’t have any elixir left,” Corvo informed him, digging a few Void stone bullets out of his own pouch and reaching over to drop them into Daud’s open palm without looking. His gaze was trained on the door they’d barred as best they could.

It wouldn’t take much longer now. They had slowed the beast, but their exit had collapsed in a rift ten minutes ago, opened by the creature, larger and meaner than any they’d seen and fought before. It had driven them deeper into the building, which had practically been hollowed out by destruction and dilapidation, two stories and the roof above the great hall and library collapsed, like the giant, dripping ribcage of a carcass.

They were pinned down.

The Abbey had lost so many men to fights like this, enough to weaken them so badly that his and Corvo’s heresy wasn’t anybody’s concern any longer. They fought in the open now, together, and they fought dirty. But this thing… this was something else. They had tied the beast down at the other end of the house, but it _would_ break free of the trap, laid by gunpowder and a weakened beam, soon enough. And when it came for them, it would crush them.

Or, at the very least, Daud. He was determined to get Corvo out of there before it could. For him, all hope was lost. He felt the blood seep from the wound in his side, and darkness began to encroach on his vision.

“Attano,” he ground out. “Enough.”

Corvo didn’t react.

“Corvo,” Daud took his last recourse. “It’s done.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Corvo said, his gaze now finding Daud’s. “We’re not done.”

“I am,” Daud said, holding his eyes. “I can’t make it up there,” he pointed. “Even if you had elixir left, I can’t use my powers. And it’s too dangerous to carry me. You’ll slip in the rain and fall.”

Fucking creatures. Got their claws too deep inside him once too often, and now the poison did its work. It killed or, in men such as them, paralysed its victims, blocking their connection to the Void — so they couldn’t get away, and then the creatures finished them off. In Daud’s case, one swipe had been enough. It had lunged for Corvo, and he hadn’t taken time to think.

Damned creatures. Damned Void. Damned _Delilah_.

*

When they dragged Attano away from the Empress’ dead body, Daud had understood what had escaped him for so long — that she had been the one. The one who had kept Dunwall together with nothing but her heart. And he’d gone and cleaved it in two. The last thing Jessamine Kaldwin had felt was his blade, and she should simply have been one in a long list. It turned out she was the one that broke him. Dragging the Princess behind him by her wrist, he knew he had made the one mistake that there was no returning from. He had found regret, not of death, but of his own life.

He had a week to make peace with his choices, and then a month; while Attano rotted in a cell and the child was locked in with whores as Plague-ridden as the rats. Two months were gone and Daud still had no answer to a question no-one dared ask.

As Lurk watched with dark eyes, Daud sent Thomas and Rulfio to fetch him plans of Coldridge Prison.

He broke him out, brought him back to the Flooded District, and told him to keep from killing him just another month or two. That night, exhausted from the torture and the torment, Attano slept, despite his best efforts; and when he woke, there was a brand on the back of his left hand.

Daud should have expected that.

He showed him what Corvo was willing to learn, and barely a week later they broke into the Golden Cat. Daud kept out of sight when Corvo took Emily, but they could not hold out forever. So when they arrived at the Chamber, when Emily realised who had been helping Corvo, she shrank away with a cry.

She did not speak for a week. The youngest novices, not yet afflicted with the Arcane Bond, had to bring her food, as she would not let the adults, or anyone reeking of the Void, near her. That included Corvo. Daud had to watch as the man nearly went spare over his daughter looking at him as though he had betrayed her. She watched everything, everyone, watched the Whalers and Daud and Corvo as they navigated a fragile truce.

One day, she stood before Daud, a gulf between them wider than the Wrenhaven, and she asked him:

“Why?”

There was more than one question there, and more than one answer, and none of them were kind. Why had he killed her mother, why was he helping Attano now — why had Attano not long killed him, now that he had everything he needed to end her mothers’ murderers?

But there was a question only he could answer.

“Because your mother was right. Dunwall needed her to save itself, and I let myself believe it was just another job. Burrows paid me and I pinned it on your—your bodyguard. Your mother is dead because I was callous. And I am helping Attano because I regret her death and my role in it. I do not expect to live, Princess. I only expect to settle a score.”

He was unsure of his answer — convinced of its truth but uncertain it was the one she wanted. Or, indeed, the one that was needed.

It must have been, for she turned and ran towards Attano, who had watched and waited, and threw her arms around his middle and sobbed. Attano cried quietly into her hair, and Daud tried not to look.

From that day on, they protected Emily together. One by one, they hollowed out the Conspiracy, and when Corvo was injured in the final fight at Dunwall Tower — injured because Daud was too slow and the Tallboy not yet toppled to the ground — Emily decreed his penance was to stay.

Someone had to stay and make sure Attano wouldn’t croak trying to protect the new Empress with his guts hanging out; and so Daud donned a mask and a new coat and played the role for as long as he needed to recover. When the Royal Protector was back in his rightful place, and when Emily looked at Daud to tell him he might as well make himself useful working for her new Spymaster, Daud was already in too deep (and just as deeply in denial) to say no.

He agreed, and he stayed, and then Billie showed her hand when she opened the gates of the Chamber to a witch with aspirations of the throne.

They were almost too late to realise what Delilah was really planning; and then they were barely in time to interrupt her ritual. When they did, there was a charge in the air and copper in their lungs, and when Delilah snarled and turned her power on the Void itself instead —

it fractured.

It tore and frayed and burst like a drum, and when Daud blinked his eyes open, the witch was dead, Attano was cradled underneath him, alive and sound, and a rift right in front of them showed the Dunwall night sky.

From behind them, there came an inhuman roar, and just in time they fled.

*

It was a roar like that from six years ago that burrowed into the marrow of Daud’s bones now, and made him close his eyes with dread, no matter that Corvo’s were pleading with him.

“I’m not leaving you here,” he said, and Daud knew he believed it. The Void take him, Corvo believed in _him_.

Years and years, and Daud had never had time to _think_. Had not let himself, for fear of what he might find. He had certainly never allowed himself to dream.

“You have to,” Daud said, then grunted as he shifted his weight, pushed his shoulders up higher against the stone. “Corvo, I’m dying.”

“Daud—”

Daud shook his head, and Corvo stopped.

“Looks like this is my last chance to… something I ought to have told you a long time ago,” Daud began, and Corvo’s expression turned into restrained panic. But he didn’t speak, and the silence between them turned long. “The way you keep food in your pockets is disgusting,” Daud finally continued, “and you _steal_ it. Those weeks of scavenging because rations were scarce turned you feral.”

Corvo’s face fell.

“There are crumbs _everywhere_ you go. Even on my _desk_,” he complained.

The Whalers and Daud had remained in the Flooded District, albeit in a renovated building, to keep the gangs in check. Corvo visited him often.

“Speaking of,” Daud continued his list of petty grievances, “the rats still follow you, and then they end up staying in my district. And for some Void-forsaken reason, Corvo, they _like me_.” He took a breath, and Corvo made no effort to cut him off. “The way you store your concealed weapons is all wrong, and I cannot count the times I’ve nearly stabbed myself when handling your coat. Are you _mad?_ Also, I don’t know how you do it, but your socks end up everywhere but the laundry. I tripped over one last week. I don’t _live_ with you, Attano, why am I tripping over your socks? Worse than even _that_, our filing systems are completely incompatible, and you refuse to amend yours; instead you’d rather eat the last of the butter scones in lieu of listening to me.”

Daud felt himself struggle against the pain and he knew he had to finish this soon.

“And what of your damned bleeding heart? You need to help everyone, and you never take no for an answer. You can never just let someone wallow in their misery,” he argued bitterly, as only someone could who was speaking from experience.

“Are you done?” Corvo finally asked, his voice flat and his eyes dull.

“No,” Daud breathed harshly. “What's most infuriating is that, despite all that, I cannot think of a person I'd rather want to share my last moments with. I cannot think of a man who could have made me _want_ to find a new purpose. You make me better, Attano, and that's the worst thing about you. You _forgave_ me. That is by far your greatest failing.”

For a long moment, Corvo merely stared at him and, caught in his gaze, Daud forgot all about the beast coming for them, forgot his wounds and death come knocking. Corvo drew breath, as if to speak. And then, he pounced.

His hands on Daud’s cheeks, long fingers weaving into his hair, he kissed him, fierce and hard and breathless. He coaxed Daud’s lips apart, stealing his breath as though it was owed to him, and Daud reckoned it was.

He was on borrowed time. Had been, now, for a while.

Corvo pulled back but did not let him go, and growled, “You _asshole_.”

He knew. He had to know Daud would have never said anything if he saw any chance of getting out of this. And he was finally giving him this _now_? Daud nearly laughed. They had wasted so much time. And now, what Daud had intended as mercy, as a way of making it easier, was only turning into more cruelty.

He answered Corvo’s gaze, still half-dazed, and rasped, “I know.”

“Why did you never _say_ anything?”

“Corvo. How could I ever have believed you loved me?”

Corvo finally looked away from him, and Daud warred with the sadness—elation—devastation inside him. He was going to die here. He would not let Corvo stay to watch.

“Go,” he nudged him.

Corvo growled once again and dove in and kissed him angrily, biting his stinging lips, and then he said, “We are not going to die here.”

*

At the end, Daud discovered he could still aim even with half of him numb from blood loss, and when Corvo stood in the centre of the hall, panting and covered in Void and so damned righteous, Daud loved him more than he ever had.

“Outsider’s ass,” he griped as Corvo helped him up. “You’re _stubborn_.”

Corvo grunted as he took his weight. “More grievances, love?”

Daud stumbled, and not from pain or feeling faint.

“I have a list, too, you know,” said Corvo then.

Daud turned a little, reached up, and tugged Corvo down to meet him, until they were nose to nose. “Tell me later.”

As they kissed, blood from Daud’s hand on his cheekbone, Corvo smiled against him.

**Author's Note:**

> prompt was this: 
> 
> "basically daud & corvo are in a serious pickle, daud may be gravely injured or they're just certain to die within the next quarter-hour, and daud starts "this is going to be my last chance to say this to you..." all serious and direct like he do and just starts in on a very long list of petty grievances he's been holding back for months or years depending on the timeline  
also they smooch. angrily"


End file.
